Furniture chain’s ‘Red Sox sweep’ promotion ruled legal

A 2008 promotion by Jordan’s Furniture — promising that any furniture bought during a certain time frame would be free if the Red Sox swept the World Series — was not an illegal lottery.

A customer had complained that Jordan’s actions did create a lottery which violated the state’s consumer protection law.

But first a Superior Court judge and later the Appeals Court, in an unpublished decision, disagreed.

The courts noted that, in Massachusetts, to constitute a lottery a promotion must include (1) the payment of a price, (2) a prize and (3) some element of chance.

The Appeals Court concluded that, because the plaintiff’s complaint did not claim that any part of the purchase price of the furniture was paid for the chance to win the rebate, the plaintiff failed sufficiently to assert the element of “price” and Jordan’s “Monster Sweep” could not be called a lottery.